Panama to Columbia (via San Blas) by Boat!!

Catchy title huh? Well what can I say...we finally organised the trip, made our way to Portobello (about 2 hrs by bus from Panama City), met our Captain (Argentinian guy called Guillermo) and our crew for the next 5 days (2 canadians, 2 kiwis, 2 argentinians - all male...so yes that was just me with 8 guys!!). Also the boat was only designed to carry 7 people maximum!!! Guillermo explained that we would be sailing overnight so he did not need a bed, but that still left one poor person fighting for some floor space (luckily as the only couple we were given double bed space to ourselves!!!). You might well realise that our dream boat trip was not quite all we were expecting!!! I have yet to mention the toilet which stank top high heaven, so that if you were lucky enough not to suffer sea sickness, you would certainly be feeling rather queezy the miute you went down below!! But it made little difference to us as we both suffered hurrendous sea sickness!!!

However lets not dwell on the negative....the fact that we managed to cross borders by boat was still pretty cool.

That little hut on the left was the Panama immigration office in the San Blas islands and in the dingy was Guillermo taking our passports across to get stamped (we didn´t even get off the boat!)








The San Blas islands were amazing, there are apparently 365 islands, although a lot consist of just a small mound of sand and one palm tree!! It was more carribean paradise...so watch out for more picture postcard photos!! We spent two days chilling out, snorkling, sunbathing & playing frisbee on the islands!! We also ate like Kings, buying 2 massive crabs and 5 five lobster off the local fishermen for just 20$ - the Canadians were amazing cooks!!! Gulliermo wasn´t too bad either making cerviche (raw fish salad) from the large tuna we caught....if someone had told us we'd be eating raw fish prepared on a small, dirty sailing boat I would have laughed!!! But we lived to tell the tale, and it was delicious!!!

Unfortunately after we left the San Blas islands we had 48 hours of solid sailing, complete with the afforementioned sea sickness!!! Not only that but the utter boredom of having nothing but big open ocean to stare at and nothing to do!! We played endless games of cards and drinking games (without the alcohol....still feeling too sick).

Eventually we sighted land, and with prospect of getting off the boat we cracked open the beers (everyone bought enough for 4 days of heavy drinking so there were still a hell of a lot to get through!!). We were given some good entertainment for our drinking session as the Columbian coastguard boarded the boat for a thorough search (not quite sure who brings drugs INTO Columbia!!!).

But we got through immigration and are now in Columbia, in Cartegena!!!